PALM HARBOR, Fla. — A treacherous Sunday awaits the contenders at the Valspar Championship, led by South Korean Sungjae Im.

Here are five storylines to follow heading into the final round at Innisbrook Resort's Copperhead Course.

1. Can Sungjae Im break his winless drought with a wire-to-wire victory?

When Im won his first two PGA TOUR events in back-to-back years, from 2020-21, he showed no signs of slowing down. But for the past four years, despite maintaining an elite level of play and qualifying for every TOUR Championship, he hasn't been able to close the deal.

Sunday marks Im's best opportunity to win and first time holding a 54-hole lead on the PGA TOUR since 2022. He's been in the No. 1 position at the Valspar since a first-round 64, and he looked calm, confident and in control for the better part of Moving Day.

Making the turn in 33 in the third round, he stumbled with bogeys on Nos. 12-13 to briefly lose the solo lead, but ultimately curled in a 13-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole, fist pumping afterward, to give himself a two-shot lead at 11-under.

The Valspar is only his third start since returning from a wrist injury. "I think a lot of my shots that I didn't like from last year I was able to, once I started practicing, I was able to correct and it's just been consistently getting better," said Im after his third round.

2. Matt Fitzpatrick seeks redemption from THE PLAYERS

It's been almost a full week since Matt Fitzpatrick's runner-up finish at THE PLAYERS Championship, where he bogeyed the 72nd hole to fall one short of forcing a playoff with Cameron Young. It's very much on Fitzpatrick's mind.

"You're always thinking about past experience, trying to draw on that and that's what I did today as well and going into tomorrow will be the same thing," Fitzpatrick said after his third-round 68, which left him three shots back of Im heading into Sunday. "It's something that you just got to be patient with out there and you've got to use that to your advantage as best you can."

Fitzpatrick is seeking his third PGA TOUR win and first since the 2023 RBC Heritage. After a shaky start to 2025, he rounded into form in the summer to earn a captain's pick on the Ryder Cup and started the 2026 season with four top-25 finishes in six starts. Whether he can go the distance remains to be seen.

3. Snake Pit looms at the finish line

The Copperhead Course's 16th, 17th and 18th holes, dubbed the "Snake Pit," have played as the second, fifth and seventh-most difficult holes, respectively, over the course of the week. Collectively, those holes have seen 254 bogeys or worse this week – and these are supposedly some of the TOUR's best!

No lead is safe entering that final stretch, especially with sunny and breezy conditions that will continue to harden up the greens. Year after year, these final holes have crowned a winner – there's no evidence that this year's edition of the tournament will be any different.

4. Can Brooks Koepka end the Florida Swing in form?

An hour before Im's thrilling 18th-hole birdie, Brooks Koepka walked off the final hole feeling disappointed.

He had gone from contending into the weekend, five shots off the lead, to falling out of the mix after an even-par third round that left him at 4-under. It's an anticlimactic beginning of the end to a Florida Swing where Koepka posted a top-10 result at PGA National and made some noise over the weekend at THE PLAYERS.

Still, Koepka took some positives from his week, where he gained 2.442 strokes putting, which has been his Achilles heel since returning to the TOUR in February. "I felt good on the greens," said Koepka. "I felt like I'm starting the putts on line. ... it's been really solid, and I've seen a lot of improvement. Hopefully, I mean, we're two, three weeks in, so hopefully it just gets better and better."

Just three weeks away from the Masters, a tournament that has proved elusive to Koepka, and with other Signature Events that he has yet to qualify for on the horizon, can Sunday at the Valspar be another step in the right direction for the nine-time PGA TOUR winner?

5. Could a first-time winner prevail at the Valspar?

David Lipsky and Marco Penge are the two names in the top five of the Valspar Championship leaderboard that will be playing in the penultimate group on Sunday, and they just happen to be the only ones that have yet to win on the PGA TOUR. But don't attribute that to lack of experience.

Lipsky, a 37-year-old Los Angeles native, has bounced between international tours, picking up several wins, and the Korn Ferry Tour before finding his footing on the PGA TOUR in 2022. After falling short of his TOUR card in 2024, he finished 91st in the FedExCup standings in 2025 and has been trending upward. His Saturday 70 at the Valspar was enough to position him two shots back of Im and in position for a breakthrough.

"I mean, (winning) means everything," said Lipsky on Saturday after his round. "That's what I dreamed of as a little kid. It's why I spent so many years playing across the world to try to get here to put myself in these moments."

This is Englishman Penge's first season on the TOUR after he was the top finisher in the 2025 DP World Tour Top 10 thanks to a three-win season. Now a Florida resident, he's just starting to get comfortable on the PGA TOUR and is three shots behind Im heading into the final round.

"I think with the season I had last year, obviously I think there was high expectations on me from the outside world," said Penge on Saturday. "For myself, I feel like I'm still got so much to learn and quite far away from where I want to be or where I feel like I could be. But it's just taking time to adapt over here. It's slightly different golf to what it is in Europe. The courses are set up slightly harder and playing with better players every week. So, yeah, my expectations are pretty low, to be fair."

Underpromise, overdeliver, as the saying goes.